Gripla - 01.01.2003, Síða 84

82
GRIPLA
this episode, like the characterization of Kálfr, can be traced back before
Snorri; Bjame Fidjestpl sees their origin in a verse by Sigvatr describing Þórir
hundr’s attack on the king as hunds verk (Fidjestpl 1997 [1987], 171-72).26
It is impossible to prove that the image of bear-hunting in Bjarnar saga
does not derive from stories of Stiklarstaðir (if not necessarily from Heims-
kringla), though the pun on the name Bjgrn could easily arise independently.
But the theme is much more essential to the scene of Bjgrn’s death than
Bjami’s footnote implies, and can be related to the traditions of the hero’s
fight as næsta vápnlauss maðr (Borgfirðinga sggur, 203), described above.
The image is extended as the attackers plan to encircle their disabled quarry,
waiting for their leader to deal the final blow.27 The characterization of Bjqm
as a hero who fights impressively without weapons is also alluded to earlier in
the saga in the verse describing the killing of Þorsteinn Kálfsson, mentioned
above:
ok vágum þann þeygi
Þundar gráps með vápnum;
fall varð fleygiþolli
fjprgrand Niðar branda.28
(Borgfirðinga sggur, 167)
In the accompanying narrative the saga author elaborates this, telling how
Bjgrn kills Þorsteinn, who had aimed an axe-blow at him, by seizing him
around the waist and throwing him to the ground, ‘ok tekr um barka hans ok
kyrkir, til þess at hann var dauðr, ok hafði engi vápn við hann’ (166) [and he
took him by the windpipe and squeezed until he was dead, and he had no
weapons with him]. The theme of the warrior who relies on his bare hands
rather than weapons is ubiquitous in older tradition; Egill Skalla-tjrímsson,
who kills a man by biting through his windpipe, is a model for Bjprn, while
more far-flung prototypes are the werewolf VQlsungar Sigmundr and Sinfjgtli,
and, once again, Beowulf.
26 For these and other uses of animal puns, see Whaley 1993, 140.
27 Compare the description in Hrólfs saga kraka of the surrounding of the warrior Bjpm,
transformed by enchantment into a bear: ‘Þar kom, at þeir slógu hring um hann, ok sveimaði
hann þá innan um hringinn ok sér, í hvert efni komit er, at hann fær eigi undan komizt’
(Hrólfs saga kraka, 50).
28 ‘and by no means did we (I) kill him with weapons of Óðinn’s storm (= battle): a fall caused
mortal harm to the scatterer of river-fire (= generous man).’